1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to apparatus for rapidly heating and cooling a mold for forming, molding or welding thermoplastic tubing and, more particularly, to apparatus for severing, and collecting the tips of the tubing after a tip cutting process.
2. Description of Related Prior Art
Molds used for forming, molding and welding plastic tubing have employed a resistive element associated with the mold and the tubing to be formed is disposed within the mold. Inductive heating of the mold has also been employed. Such heating has been at a fixed location on the mold without the capability of varying the location of application of heat.
Molds used for forming, molding and welding tubing have been cooled primarily through the use of massive heat sinks. The rate of cooling of the mold to permit withdrawal of the formed tubing is a function of the ambient temperature and the massiveness of the heat sinks. Furthermore, some benefit has been achieved through dissipation of heat by radiation from finned heat sinks. Nevertheless, a significant time period is required to achieve the requisite cooling of the mold to permit withdrawal of the formed tubing. Such time constraints negatively impact throughput of the mold.
Prior art molds for use in conjunction with the forming, molding and welding of tubing are in the nature of a composite or unitary assembly having the requisite parts associated with one another to form a unit. If a different mold is to be used to achieve a different operation of forming, molding and/or welding of the tubing, a new unit must be constructed. Without the capability of using substitutable subassemblies related to the mold itself, significant costs are incurred by having to develop a complete unit for each type of operation to be achieved.
IV tip manufacturing processes have been in operation a long time. Despite the maturity of the IV tip manufacturing process, there does not exist a reliable and consistent apparatus or methodology for capturing excess material resulting from the tip cutting process. In a typical IV tip manufacturing clean room, small particulates, byproducts of IV tip cuttings, cover the surroundings of an IV tipping station and demonstrates the lack of existing methodology to capture this debris.
Detecting the presence of tip debris can provide a signal to either an operator or a control circuit of the result of the tip cutting process. A lack of positive detection of the tip debris provides an alert to either the operator or the control circuit of a system failure. Such system failures may be indicative of production of bad parts. In an automated environment, a failure of this type may be a significant set back. Presently, detection of a system failure is a function of the lack of tip debris and reliance is placed solely upon an operator to continually remain observant.